This article refers to our new pricing plans. If you joined Intercom before November 15, 2023, this information may not apply to you. For information about one of our legacy plans, please log in to view these articles instead, or contact us through the Messenger.
Access to an Intercom workspace requires a seat, and every teammate must have only one seat assigned to them. There are two types of seats:
Full seats
A full seat provides full access to all Intercom capabilities contained within your chosen core plan. Each teammate/employee requires a seat to access your Intercom workspace.
There is a monthly cost for each seat based on the core plan:
Essential - $39/full seat
Advanced - $99/full seat
Expert - $139/full seat
Note:
Prices are shown in United States Dollars (USD).
Every plan comes with 1 minimum seat and no maximum seats.
All seats in your workspace must be from the same core plan. For example, a workspace can’t have 3 seats from the Essential plan and 4 seats from the Advanced plan.
You won’t be charged for full seats during a trial.
Inviting teammates
Invite people to join your workspace by assigning them a seat. Only when the employee/user accepts the invite, do we count that seat as used (which will be billed if it’s a full seat), otherwise the invitation remains as "pending".
Roles and permissions let you limit teammates’ access to features if needed.
How seats are billed
Seats are billed ahead for the next billing period. Seat usage will be prorated (see example below). This means you’re charged for the number of seats you actually had on each day of the billing period.
Example
Initial charge (September 1st):
You were billed ahead for 1 Essential seat @ $39/seat = $39. Your invoice will have a line which shows:
September 1st - September 30th: 1 seat - $39
Adding more seats (September 15th):
You add 5 additional seats.
Next month's invoice (October 1st):
Your invoice will show:
September 15th - September 30th: 5 seats - $104 (5 seats prorated for 16 days).
October 1st - October 31st: 6 seats - $234 (billed ahead for one month, 6 seats @ $39/seat).
Contracted seats
The following information only applies to customers on monthly, quarterly, or annual contracts.
All contracted seats will be billed ahead according to their billing frequency (monthly/quarterly/annually).
Additional seats are allowed if you exceed your contracted minimum and will be prorated from the date on which the seats were added or removed during the billing period. You’ll be charged for each additional seat at your plan price. Additional seats are billed ahead monthly (not quarterly/annually).
Example 1
Initial charge (January 1st):
You sign an annual contract for 10 Essential seats, you prefer upfront payment.
Your invoice will have a line which shows:
January 1st - December 31st: 10 seats - $4,680 ($39 * 10 seats * 12 months)
Example 2
Initial charge (January 1st):
You sign an annual contract for 3 Advanced seats, you prefer upfront payment.
Your invoice will have a line which shows:
January 1st - December 31st: 3 seats - $3,564 ($99 * 3 seats * 12 months)
Additional Usage (August 1st):
In August you use Intercom for a big product launch (10,000 Bulk Email Sent).
Additional Usage Invoice (September 1st):
Your additional usage invoice will have a line which shows:
10,000 Bulk Email Sent - $254.
Example 3
Initial charge (January 1st):
You sign an annual contract for 3 Advanced seats, you prefer monthly payment.
Your invoice will have a line which shows:
January 1st, 3 seats - $297 ($99 * 3 seats)
Additional Seats (November 1st):
In November you hire two new teammates to stay on top of the forecasted increase in sales. You assign each teammate a full seat.
Additional Usage Invoice (December 1st):
Your additional usage invoice will have a line which shows:
Bill in arrears for the extra seats used in the past month $198 ($99 * 2 seats)
Bill ahead for December $297 ($99 * 5 seats)
Lite seats
Lite seats provide limited access and permissions for a workspace to support cross-functional collaboration in and outside your organization (e.g. finance and billing teams, legal counsels, engineers and designers, etc.).
There are a limited number of lite seats included on the following plans:
Advanced - 20 lite seats
Expert - 50 lite seats
(The Essential plan doesn’t offer any lite seats).
Lite seats are not charged per seat, they’re simply included on the Advanced and Expert plans. The number of lite seats available to you will be communicated in your workspace and on your Order Form.
Lite seat access
Teammates with lite seats will see a simplified Help Desk with some notable differences from teammates who have a full seat.
| Lite seats can | Lite seats can't |
Inbox | View their @mentions | View or access right sidebar (attributes, apps, etc.) |
| Access Help or give feedback link on left panel |
|
Conversations and tickets | View all conversations (through links) & tickets (where permissions allow) not just ones where they have been mentioned | Create a new conversation/ticket |
| See who else is looking at the conversation at the moment (top bar label) | Be assigned a conversation (i.e. no personal Inbox, no teams, no reporting on time spent) |
| See conversation events (turned Off by default, when turned On only show only relevant ones) | Reply to conversations |
| View conversation current status | Start outbound conversations |
|
| Snooze a conversation |
|
| Close a conversation |
|
| Manage (add/delete) conversation participants |
|
| Convert conversation to ticket |
|
| Share a ticket (while creating it or while editing) |
|
| Edit ticket/conversation attributes |
|
| Change ticket status |
|
| Add/edit conversation subject |
|
| Create a linked ticket |
|
| Access contact profile through hover on conversation message profile picture |
Composer | Composer actions (via cursor or CMD+K):
| Composer actions (via cursor or CMD+K):
|
Notes | Add notes to all conversations & tickets (where permissions allow) |
|
| @mention any other teammate in a note |
|
Tags |
| Add a tag to a message in a conversation |
|
| Create/edit/remove tags from a conversation message |
Lite seat permissions
In addition to limited Help Desk access, lite seats have the following platform access and permissions:
Settings | Can access general and security settings |
| Can manage teammates and permissions |
| Can access Messenger settings |
| Can access billing settings |
| Can access Proactive Support settings |
| Can edit Default sender address |
Data and security | Can manage workspace data |
Apps and integrations | Can access developer hub |
| Can install, configure and delete apps |
Articles | Can manage saved views for articles |
Reports | Can access Reports |
| > Can share Reports |
| > Can export CSV |
| > Custom reports (view) |
| > Custom reports (create/edit) |
| > Custom reports (delete) |
Roles and permissions let you further limit teammates’ access to features if needed.
How seats are managed
You can see how many full or lite seats are used on your workspace by navigating to Settings > Teammates and viewing the Seat column.
If you change your seat count mid-period, the estimated seat cost on the Subscription page and the actual invoice won’t match:
Your invoice will show accurate billing based on the actual usage days of each seat to ensure you’re only charged for the duration a seat is used.
However, the Subscription page will display seat costs based on the most recent seat count, not accounting for any prorated charges.
To manage seats, go to Settings > Teammates and hover over a teammate’s name to click the Edit button.
This allows you to select their seat type and manage their permissions and roles within your workspace.
Removing a teammate
If you remove a teammate with a lite seat, this will free up a lite seat included on an Advanced or Expert plan.
Unless you have a contracted minimum, if you remove a teammate with a full seat, this change will be prorated on your next bill and you’ll only be charged for the period that this full seat was in use.
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